SERIOUS CHARGES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 36, 5 November 1937, Page 5

SERIOUS CHARGES

-Pre8s Association.)

Maoris Sentenced in Supreme Court

(By Telegraph-

GISBORNE, This Day. Commenting that members of the Maori raoe would agree that their womenfplk had to be protected aud addiug that this was a case calling for exemplary punishment, Mr Justice Ostler today sentenced Watarawi Tatae, alias Walter Wilson, to three years' hard labour for indecent assault. Evidence on which the jury convicted accused showed that he had driven a seventeen-year-old girf to his whare against her Will, given her a black eye and otherwise injured her, before threatening her with a knife and frightening her into spending the night with him. Accused was a married man with two children, but for some time he had been living with an elder sister of complainant, this sister having been present at the time of the assault. Tieki Mauhana, convicted on ,two charges of carnal knowledge of a girl of fourteen, was sentenced to six months' iinprisonment, the Judge commenting that Maori girls were entitled to the same protection as Europeans. The two Maoris, Hohura Kukurangi and Nephi Teera, charged with carnal knowledge were admitted.to probation for twelve nionths, on condition that they pay the costs of prosocution, the Judge commenting that, in these cases, the probation ofiicer's report wag favourable and it appeared that the girls concerned were of easy virtue. ;